Although applicable in principal to any system that comprises an antenna array, the present invention and its underlying problem will be hereinafter described in combination with antennas for mobile communication systems.
In modern wireless communication systems and devices, data is no only transmitted via a single antenna or a single wireless signal. Instead, multiple antennas may be provided in the wireless devices and multiple wireless signals may be used concurrently to transmit data in parallel.
However, the use of parallel wireless signals requires specific capabilities in the wireless devices, like e.g. user equipment or base stations. One of the required capabilities is a beamforming and/or -steering capability of the antennas of the wireless devices. An antenna that is capable of performing beamforming and/or -steering may e.g. direct the emitted beams or radio waves into a controllable direction, at least within a given angle range. Usually, a plurality of small antenna elements will be united in an antenna array and the beamsteering is performed by changing or tuning the relative phases of the signals for the single antenna elements.
During production of wireless devices thorough testing of the single wireless devices is required to ensure that the single wireless devices comply with legal and/or standards regulations.
Such tests may e.g. be performed with a VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio) tester or meter by performing a respective phase scan. However, especially for antenna arrays with a large number of antenna elements, such tests may last up to 15 minutes or more.
Against this background, the problem addressed by the present invention is providing an improved testing of antennas.